


You May Have Survived But...

by JValentine0



Category: Biohazard | Resident Evil (Gameverse)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-30
Updated: 2021-02-11
Packaged: 2021-03-16 08:42:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,199
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29079558
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JValentine0/pseuds/JValentine0
Summary: Escape was the only option left for both of them. Far from where a city burned, they'll pick up the pieces. (AU, Snippets from Secrets and Lies)
Relationships: Jill Valentine/Albert Wesker
Comments: 5
Kudos: 19





	1. Chapter 1

"He knew all along…" Jill uttered quietly. Defeat was mud and tar in her mouth.

Silence was the only reply she would get from the man bathed in black sitting in a chair across the room. Fire licked irises glowed eerily in the low light.

Outside, the sound of an ambulance, racing down the street interrupted the rainy night.

Tears staining her cheeks, the paper in her hand crumpled between digits marred by fleeing a city that was now up in smoke. "He knew. He knew what we were up to. All of us. None of us were safe. We all played into his hand." Her voice waivered and she sniffed sharply.

An inhale of air and Wesker nodded behind his folded hands.

"He makes people desperate and depend on him. He makes people crazy. My best friend killed my dad because she thought it was the only way to save her daughter. How the fuck does someone so evil become so…" It was all too much, burning her up from inside. Without warning the whole stack of papers on the desk were flung on the floor. All they had sacrificed for: down the drain. She screamed. She threw more things. She wanted to shout something. Something heroic. Swearing she would find him and put a bullet in his head for everything that had happened. Something, anything. She said nothing. No threat, no screaming, just Jill Valentine standing in the middle of the room shaking with fury as papers fluttered to the floor. A glossy photo of the first victim they had investigated stared up from near her foot.

Albert was locked in a thousand yard stare and his mind in another place as he blinked slowly. His stare flicked as she marched off toward the door.

The disaster left in her wake in the hallway glittered in shattered jewels. Anything stowed on a shelf or on a stand in her way was shoved, toppled, and left in shards on the floor. Wiping at her face repeatedly, there was no way to hold it all in. This little hideaway wouldn't survive her for a night like this.

Quiet filled the air for a time, then the sound of sobbing reverberated through the place. Sighing inwardly, Wesker left the mess behind as well. Glass crunched under Italian leather. Striding through the house, he ducked his head into the study. Empty. Another noise further down the hallway. More broken glass. He'd deal with it later. Hands at his sides, he found himself standing in the middle of the kitchen with Jill sitting against the refrigerator.

Wine bottle in her hands, her thumbs ran up and down the Umbrella symbol stenciled in gold on the front. She looked up at him. "Bastard had his stamp of stupid on everything from vaccines to wine, didn't he? I don't even want to drink. I'm afraid of…" Her words trailed. She wasn't ready to admit just what she was afraid of. Cornflower eyes surveyed him for a moment as the man sank to his knees in front of her.

The bottle was set on the granite countertop, far from her fingers with a tendency to fling. Albert's fingers curled around hers, easing off as soon as she flinched from the pressure. He was still learning his own strength.

He looked well, healthy, everything in its place aside from those bizarre irises.

It made her think of a hunter.

The idea of him hunting anything now was absolutely terrifying.

It had already been terrifying before.

_Graying skin, dried blood flaking away clear up to his elbows, and shattered shades hung from their rims on his face. He had turned faster than some, mindlessly lashing out when they had found him with his kill that foggy morning. Pearly teeth stained in red and dirt. A gaping hole from the tyrant executing him. She and William had been lucky. They had been so lucky he'd gotten his fill before they tried to catch him. The empty eye socket of the dead cougar was a black pit she fell into often in her dreams._

_William brought him back though, just like he had promised._

She jerked out of her thoughts and inhaled sharply when warm hands rested along the sides of her face.

"Jill?"

"You tried to eat me," she choked out.

Wesker's brow furrowed at that. Shame wasn't something he was comfortable dealing with. He knew it wasn't all his fault but hearing her say it made that little black heart sink. Bare thumbs pushed away more tears.

"Everyone is dead. You were dead," Fingers curling tightly with his, her knuckles went white. "You were gone and _that thing_ was walking around in your body." No matter how she thrashed to free herself of the memories, they pulled her from the shore and under. "No, just leave me here." Her protesting was pointless, arms wrapping around his neck as he scooped her up off the tiled floor.

"Come on, there's no sense in sitting here sobbing by the fridge." Even he couldn't deny losing so many and losing to Spencer was burning right in his stomach. _'I am going to rip his eyes from their sockets and make him eat them…'_

She went into the shower with a little coaxing. The water had ran cold, and the woman jumped, when a had reached behind the curtain to cut off the water. A towel tossed over the curtain rod, she tugged it down and began to dry off. Wet hair still hung like vines around her face as Jill padded back into the bedroom. A black jacket on the chair and Wesker was on the edge of the bed focused on the TV.

"What are they saying?"

"The propaganda machine is gassed and chugging along."

_"…In the weeks leading up, radioactive waste had contaminated most of Raccoon City. Sources close to the President say…"_

Seated next to Wesker, her head snapped to look up at him. "Who do they think is going to buy this story?"

The blonde shrugged lightly. "Didn't you pay attention in science class? Nuclear weapons are a great idea. It's why we blow up all of our radioactive waste dumps." He found himself sitting in the dark with a click of the remote.

"Smartass," Jill replied lowly. "Thousands dead and that's the story." The lamp near the bed was clicked on.

He winced away from the sudden glow.

She didn't seem to notice. Towel tossed off, Jill was rummaging through a few plastic bags on the floor. Tags popped off of a few things, the woman dressed in silence in front of the mirror. A pair of joggers went easily up to her hips.

Wesker openly watched her reflection, fingers laced over a knee. "Umbrella is finished. That's what matters. Soon, Spencer will have nowhere to run."

Jill stared at her own reflection for a moment. "When are you going to accept he beat you?"

Glowing eyes smoldered. "Never. Why?"

"Just curious…" She replied during her digging. Stopping short, she pulled a folded t-shirt out and let the bag drop. Unfurling it, Jill turned it over. "Why are you giving me this?"

The word 'Captain' was plain as day stenciled on the fabric, the S.T.A.R.S. emblem on the sleeve. He hadn't even known if she would want such a thing. After everything they both had been through, the memory of it might have been too much. Yet, all the same it was the last trace of...them. A click of his tongue and he began to undo his watch. "You wore it more than I ever did. Congratulations Jill, You're the captain now." Watch dropped on the night stand, he began working off boots.

Rolling her eyes, she slipped one arm into a sleeve. "That's not funny. The last time you made a joke about that you almost got blown up a second time."

"What can I say? I'm like a cat. Unfortunately I'm running out of lives."

Crawling onto the bed, Jill smiled to herself. "…Captain Whiskers," she whispered.

His head lifted with that whisper. "Absolutely not."

"Oh that would have been funny."

Last boot tossed off, he rose to strip off his shirt. "No. I was called that my entire childhood."

"You were a captain as a kid?" Her smile disappeared under the shirt thrown at her.

Undoing his belt, the black cargo pants were shucked. "You know, you're starting to sound like…" The easy smile on his face lost its pull.

Shirt pulled away, her smile was gone too.

The ghost of their old life couldn't hold shape for long.

Everything was different now. Nothing would ever be the same again.

Surgeon's fingers snaked for hers, lacing. "I won't let this end as a dream."

She wanted to believe him. So she chose to.

Against her better judgement, she chose to.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fear won't kill you, but...

_Months ago._

"We're up shit creek without a paddle this time."

Jill looked up from the file in her hands. It may as well have been written in another language. Outside of blood type, she had no idea what she was reading. Had she the right education, she might have known she was staring at the future of man.

Possibly, anyway, if William Birkin dared to be its architect.

"You should grab a shower and try to get some sleep. You won't be missing much for the next six hours," William pointed out. Pulling the papers from her hands, his own palms wrapped around hers and squeezed. "Are you still with me in there?"

Jill could only stare. She had never thought about William having warm hands or those same hands being soft to touch. Scars laced a few of the digits. They might have been pretty at one time. She squeezed gently.

_Still here._

It was enough. The shaggy haired blonde nodded. "Alright, go down the hall. Clean up. Sleep please. You did your best today." He and the file were gone in seconds through a secured door. Annette sat on the other side, only looking up when the file was set down in front of her.

Jill watched the pair for a moment before dragging herself out of that office chair to approach the glass of the lab below. Most of the cages were empty, blood smearing the floors. A few of the staff worked tirelessly to spray down the flooring, blood and cleaning solution nothing more than liquid pink quartz as they slid down the drains. Her eyes focused on the nearest cage and the two workers hauling a body bag onto a cart. Red everywhere, she had no idea how William was going to hide just what had happened with three dead and a new occupant to his lab.

_He certainly knows how to make an entrance even as a corpse…_

She couldn't look there. Look into the cage itself. She could feel eyes on her. A slam against the glass and the two workers jumping was enough cause for retreat.

She scrubbed everywhere and then again. Nothing seemed to take away the smell or the memory of it. Jill couldn't really tell. Ghosts of him wouldn't leave her alone.

_Teeth going right for her face, a mouth so wide she thought it might swallow her whole._

_Hands. Hands that once held hers, knew touch, felt… They went for her throat and squeezed. She saw stars and then cold air was sucked down her pipe once he had been wretched off her._

_William was brilliant. She never would have thought to use a dog catcher's pole._

_Her handcuffs. Duct tape. William's belt. A ski mask tossed on backwards stuffed with William's mittens. They didn't have the resources to transport him like others._

_Nobody could know he made it out, corpse or not._

_Annette just shook her head in the parking lot when the trunk was popped. "God in heaven forgive us all…"_

* * *

Changing into street clothes, Jill found one of the bunks and crawled in. Sleep tempted her repeatedly and he was always there. The creature Lisa was there too. No matter how many times she ran, they always cornered her.

At two in the morning she gave up on sleep and returned to the lab.

William was nowhere to be found, the place deserted aside from Annette tapping away at one of the consoles.

"Looks like nobody is sleeping tonight," she uttered softly, looking back to Jill. An attempt was made at a smile, the half spent pack of cigarettes offered up.

Valentine took the offer, dropping into a chair nearby. "This is insane…" Lighting up, a thin thread of smoke crawled toward the ceiling.

Annette nodded in agreement. "It is, but I can't tell William what to do. This is his lab." Her head tilted as she looked Jill over. "We should go ahead and immunize you while you're up here."

Jill flicked a bit of ash into the one cup on the console loaded with cigarette butts. "Where did William go?"

Annette simply jerked her head to the lab below. "The boys are having an argument."

Jill peered over the side, brow furrowing in confusion. "What on earth?!"

* * *

William let out a sigh, fingers raking back all of that messy blonde. "You've really gone and done it this time. I told you not to do it. I told you not to fall in love with her and you went and did something stupid didn't you? You didn't go through with it. Now look at you!"

On the other side of the glass, Albert let out a horrible hiss. Veins were red roots tangled around the irises honed in right on William's face. Long streaks of murky brown were left in the wake of fingers. His blood, his prey's blood, a neighbor's. Who knew just how many he'd killed.

All William knew was that time was running out. Spencer was up his ass over G. The government was as well. "Fuck you, Albert! I don't have time for this shit!"

"William… Is yelling at him going to do any good right now?" Annette asked at the bottom of the stairs. She had never seen him so defeated before. In a rage, yes. This? No, never. A hand smoothed between his defeated shoulders when she approached. "This isn't going to help. Come back upstairs. You need to hear this."

* * *

"He said her name was Lisa. She swung at him. She slashed his arm with this…thing that came out of her back. I think," Jill said, trying to recall that moment. "I was lost in the tunnels. She found me, but when she saw him she went berserk. She disappeared shortly after. We both put twenty rounds in her. At least twenty."

"She can't die, dear. You two only slowed her down." Annette said with a frown.

"In the lab, he told me everything he had kept from me." Jill looked up. "Everything that everyone had been keeping from me."

William lifted a hand. "We'll get to that eventually. How did the tyrant get out?"

Jill sighed deeply. "Chris and Wesker were arguing. They had their guns drawn and someone squeezed off a round. The next thing I knew three shots went off. Wesker was shot and there was a hole in that tube." She shook her head sadly. "Chris shot it. He had to have been who shot it. That thing climbed out. It went straight for Albert."

Annette shook her head slowly. "It just gored him?"

Jill let out an unsteady breath. "Threw him across the room after."

William let out a sigh. "That is a much clearer picture than what we heard. The Red Queen disappeared, there was no data at all available to see what happened inside."

"What now?" Jill asked.

Annette flicked ash into an empty coffee cup.

Jill looked over to William. "Can you fix him?"

He shrugged behind folded hands.

"It's never been successfully done before," Annette uttered quietly.

"It was never attempted on someone who had been infected by Lisa herself," William replied. "I'll need you to get into storage, darling. First, I want to know something."

* * *

Back down on the lab floor, William stood in front of the cage. "You said one of them talked to you?"

Jill nodded as she approached, ballcap pulled off. "He asked me to help him. The notes in his office said his name was John."

Birkin nodded. "Yes, and Albert's report from Machova said those infected seemed to come in and out of it for days or even weeks."

Jill nodded again.

William circled the cage, hands clapping with the swing of his arms. "I'm trying to figure out how to explain this. The fact they retained humanity is unique. We thought it was rare. With this coming to light, I might be able to fix his mistake."

Jill looked up at what remained of Albert in the cage. The S.T.A.R.S. patch on his shoulder glared in dried brown in this light. Sick and tired eyes were fixed to William.

"He won't be the same. He might outright try to kill us all."

Jill thought back to a Christmas morning and her gift of a copy of Pet Sematary. "What goes in the ground doesn't come back the same?"

William nodded sagely. "Yeah." His sad blue eyes lifted to view the creature in the cage. "I'd deserve it. For everything I've done, I would indeed deserve to be ripped apart."

"Please don't say that."

"It's true, Jill. If you knew…. If you knew the things I did for Spencer: you would open that cage right now and let him tear me apart and then kill him."

Valentine froze at such a confession. "You were trying to stop it all."

William tossed his hands in the air. "Yeah, in the end. There was a time I wanted to carve my name into history and didn't care the cost of it." A hand mopped over his face as he rounded to the other side. "That was before Sherry. Before Annette. Albert and I were making history. We were going to cure cancer, create methods of growing back appendages for the handicapped. We were going to cure man of every ailment that plagued the herd. Then we just made monsters and now…" He made a large sweeping gesture toward the cage. "He is one." Hands dropping to his sides, he began to head for the stairs.

Annette exhaled a plume of white. "If we can't correct it, we can just put a muzzle and a leash on him. She'd never have to worry about being harassed on a late night stroll."

William barked a laugh, a weak one at best.

_"….N-Not…funny…"_

Everyone's attention shifted.

Albert stood at the glass of the cage, hands at his sides. Aside from the mess, the translucence of his skin, strain of each eye, he looked alive. His stance was a familiar thing as was the glare he was throwing toward Annette.

"…Holy shit." William breathed.

"Oh my God, he _is_ still in there," Annette dumped her cigarette before approaching the glass.

William was not far behind. Shock was apparent on his face.

Like a breath of air, everything human evaporated. Fists slamming against the glass a guttural snarl escaped the zombified man.

The two exchanged a look.

Jill wondered if perhaps everyone who turned was still in there.

Trapped.

Forced to watch their own atrocities with no control.

She locked herself in the bathroom when they moved him to another wing. Even with her hands over her ears she could still hear him snarling.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Life is fleeting but...

"Annette! NO!"

A bloody mouth gasped out a hiss only to be cut short by a sterile glove swiping out and smacking hard.

"Don't you dare try to bite me," Annette seethed, eyes enormous as she pushed Albert's head back. "For God's sake, Albert. Stay still." She reached over, dumping the scissors in a pan. The roll away cart was a mess of used instruments and dirtied gauze. Repairing him was nothing short of a nightmare. The tyrant had done so much damage. The rest he'd done himself roaming the mountains.

"Annette, he almost bit you." There was no way for William to hide the horror in his voice. His own karma for unnumbered crimes had come to his front door.

She was almost feral beneath unkept strands of blonde. Fixing the restraint back between the zombified man's teeth, she sighed. "I've never been intimidated by a virus, by a BOW, or a peer. I am not going to start now, William. What's next?" She barked over her shoulder. At the sound of him beginning to protest she let out a sigh. "We have tried everything we've done before. Every moment we spend dealing with this is time wasted not finishing G, tell me: what is next?"

William let out a sigh, a glove snapping off his hand before it was dumped in the bin against the wall. The other came off next.

Annette's shoulders dropped as she turned to face her husband. "A bullet, then?"

Birkin shook his head.

"…Then what?"

He held up a finger. Wait a minute.

William returned in about thirty minutes.

In the vial it was a sweet rose color like the perfume her mother wore. Annette didn't remember seeing this strain before.

"It's been modified. It was supposed to be used in the case of Spencer perishing because of age or an assassination attempt was made, but it just sat there for years." William's stare remained fixed on what remained of his closest friend.

Behind the mouth guard, Albert let out a low sound. Teeth against steel.

Annette loaded it, a single bubble reaching the top as it clicked. "Well, what do we have to lose? It's not like Uncle Ozwell is going to want anything but our heads after this. No turning back now." Fabric pushed up, she found a sick vein and jabbed the needle in before squeezing the trigger.

His eyes rolled to the back of his head, an unnerving gurgle at the back of his throat. Inside it must have been hell with the way he thrashed violently against the restraints, convulsing. Torso off the bed, the retrovirus offered nothing but indifference to what it was doing to him at lightning speed. There was nothing to be done about the tremors that threatened to rattle him to pieces.

Annette reached and pulled the leather strap another notch tighter. Shock streaked across her face as all of the monitors hooked up to him suddenly screamed to life.

A heartbeat.

One restraint broke.

William nearly yanked her off her feet, dragging the woman toward the door.

The monitor keeping track of vitals helplessly tumbled across the floor, glass sent flying everywhere.

Key code punched in, the door swung shut on its own and locked. A hard slam echoed in the hallway from the force of something hitting it. Then again and again.

"Oh my God!" Annette wailed, clutching onto her husband's lab coat. Heart pounding, her hand went for the pistol strapped to her belt.

The banging stopped, a horrible wretched cry muffled on the other side of the reinforced door.

"…Well we solved the dead part," William replied quietly, hair a mess with a thousand yard stare. He gladly took Annette's hand, back on his feet.

Annette stared at her husband for the longest time. "…The things I do for you two." The pistol went back into its holster.

"I know."

At the viewing window, the pair stopped and stared. Half of the room was torn apart on the other side of the glass but…

"Where is he?" She gasped when he walked right in front of the window.

The swing of his arms and the square of his shoulders; it was as if Albert hadn't been a hunched and horrible corpse just minutes before. The color had begun to return to his skin as he paced. Staring at his own hands, the wounds there were all but evaporating by some invisible guidance. The jagged wound crossing his front had closed, fresh skin peeking out from the ruined fabric of his uniform. It was only when he looked up that they could see the difference.

He blinked, and squinted. Wesker's irises were tight slights in their sockets. Twin dead suns in their eerie glow. He could see two forms moving behind the glass but they were just smears of white and gray. The heels of his hands pressed along his forehead as a wave of nausea rolled over him.

"Can he even see us?"

"If he's blind, just hang me in the break room." William muttered, putting his fingertips to his temples, a pounding headache growing behind his eyes. He pressed the button to the microphone. "Albert? How are you feeling?"

There was a long pause. Albert approached the glass at a sluggish pace. At a closer range, out of the florescent light, he could see them both. His voice was broken and almost scratchy when the man spoke. Dried blood crusted around his mouth came away as he touched his own face. "You both… look like shit." With that said, the contents of his stomach suddenly were purged right onto the clean floor.

Both winced and looked away.

He gagged when he realized one of the masses on the floor was a finger. "…I think I ate someone," he mumbled behind a closed fist.

Annette shivered as she blew out cigarette smoke. "Oh, that is vile."

"We'll skip having lady fingers on the menu…" William's lips twitched up in a smile with the nudge from his wife's elbow.

Wesker either didn't hear it or didn't care. He stumbled back to the safety of the hospital bed, hauling himself on it.

Both stood at the window for the longest time, watching. Perhaps, waiting for the floor to fall out from under them.

It never came.

No mutation.

No V-ACT.

Nothing.

Annette curled an arm around her husband. "He's perfect. Well done, William…"

* * *

After two weeks, a message on the answering machine let her know to come back.

News.

Jill found herself stowing away on a cable car at a quarter past ten. Annette's old keycard saw her all the way through to the poorly lit and deserted wing she had previously been welcomed into. Bag dumped off on the bunk she'd taken up, she turned the light off upon leaving.

She made her way to the control room, finding it deserted. The lab down below was empty too, spotless, with only a few of the overhead lights on. Everyone was gone. The lack of one individual of the undead variety in a cage had her stomach in knots.

Truth be told, she'd cried herself dry at this point. It had been a month since the incident. She no longer reached in the dark for fingers to curl with hers, squeezing them before a mouth was along the curve of her neck. She felt hollowed out and there wasn't a thing in the world to be done about it.

A box left by the consoles caught her attention. Robin egg blue, several shiny ribbons tied it closed shut. She flipped the tag over on it.

Happy Birthday, Jill. Love, The Birkins.

A puzzled look crossed her face. "My birthday was in May…" Her brows lifted when she opened the box and found an empty vial inside. She turned, trying to read the print of the label in the light. Below the Umbrella logo were several numbers and letters.

Wait…

"…I told them it was a stupid idea," a familiar yet scratchy and low voice broke the silence.

Cornflower eyes lifted, wide and stunned, like someone had just walked over her grave.

He looked well, the lines which had previously been forming along his face were far less noticeable, as if the clock had been reversed. Wesker's head tilted, eyes focused on her behind the lenses.

Jill didn't move a muscle when he took the empty vial out of her hand. Her reflection stared back in the mirror of his sunglasses.

"They should have gone to Pottery Barn. An empty vial and a science experiment isn't a good gif-" He winced when she threw her arms around him, his own draped in black wrapping slowly and carefully around her.

Jill's nose buried against the hollow of his throat, inhaling deeply. Hot tears welling, one hand snaked back to mop them away. It soon slid down, feeling that familiar thump of a heartbeat under her fingers. "You're really here…"

Dusky glowing eyes closed tightly as he pressed his nose against her hair.

* * *

"You'll never be free so long as you chain yourself to that man."

Confusion covered Jill's expression. Even in the dim light it was obvious.

Stepping out of the shadows, Ada approached, taking in all of the apartment. Books everywhere, paintings, a piano shoved against the wall. Albert's fingerprints were practically covering every inch of this place.

Her too.

"Did he send you?"

The dark haired woman shook her head. "No. He doesn't know I'm here." Expressive eyes focused on Jill's face. "I'm here in the city on behalf of an organization who has great interest in him." Folding a shirt, she tossed it into the pack with the others. Another t-shirt folded into three, she dropped it in. "They don't know about you surviving. If they did, they'd have snagged you by now."

Lighting a cigarette, Valentine cracked the window next to her bed. "Are you going to tell them I'm alive?"

"No, I don't think I want them to have you. I see a lot of myself in you. Orphaned, having to do whatever it takes…" Ada's drifted to the window. "I admire you for that."

"So you're here to tell me what, exactly?"

"When Spencer figures out he's alive: he'll hunt you both forever."

A furrow took over Jill's brow. "Because he came back?"

"Spencer wants what he is now and you can be used as leverage. Do both of you a favor and disappear while you still can."

"I can't just abandon these people or him. I won't."

"Do you really think he's going to take you with him? Skip off into the sunset together and live the American Dream?" Ada's lips pursed, a pair of socks dropped in. "This city will be your grave if you stay." Stepping away, she stopped short at the coffee table and a single photo of the two on a stack of so many others. "If you survive, you'll have no choice but to run anyway. You'll never be able to have a normal life with him. There will always be danger. There will always be someone vying for him because of what he is."

"He wouldn't do that to me," Jill's voice was small. She didn't even sound convinced of her own words. The change had been a slap to the face. Had he really changed, though? Was it all an act before?

Ada made an amused sound, shaking her head. "Oh you sweet girl, what ever possessed you to get tangled up with Albert Wesker?"


End file.
